At work I sit behind big glass windows near the elevator, stairs, and restrooms on the top floor of my two-story open-air office building. Everyone coming to work, leaving work, using the restroom, and getting their mail has to pass by my office doors. I know the lazy-asses who take the elevator up from the parking garage and the even lazier-asses who take it down. (Down? Really?) Most take the stairs.

A few people look in and smile as they walk by. Everyone else looks straight ahead, ignoring me, as if by not acknowledging me with a friendly smile will somehow render them invisible and I won’t know that their morning coffee has kicked in. One older gentleman, a CPA named George, always waves. Enthusiastically. Sometimes he comes in to chat. (He takes the elevator, but I would put him in his late 60’s and he often brings his dog to work, so I do not place him in the lazy-ass category. He’s earned the elevator.)

About two or three months ago new tenants moved in a couple doors down. I didn’t think much about it until I saw him. Tall. Handsome. Dreamy. He comes to work in rolled up jeans and flip flops. Sometimes he wears a hat. Not a baseball hat. A dapper looking hat with a brim. I call him my work boyfriend. Watching him saunter by my office doors is the high point of my day. (My work day, I mean. Because going home to Dave and the kids and making them all dinner, and then having the kids roll their eyes at me as I try to be an active and involved parent by asking them about their day and then cleaning up the kitchen as everyone scatters to do homework and walk the dog is the true high point of my day. Obviously.)

When the new tenant’s name was posted on the office directory I googled them. (Oh, like you wouldn’t!) Entertainment law. Apparently entertainment lawyers dress a lot more casually than other types of lawyers.

He wears a wedding ring which is good, because I really can’t have him falling in love with me. I mean, I am a married woman after all. (But I think some office fantasy eye candy is allowed.)

In real life he wouldn’t be for me. He’s a total hipster. (I mean what kind of forty year old wears rolled up jeans?) And I hate hipsters. Not because I think they think they are better or cooler than me (which I’m sure they do), but because I think they are better and cooler than me. Well, maybe not better. But definitely cooler. (But then, everyone is cooler than me.)

Once, when Marley was about nine she said, “Girls who hate Katy Perry want to be Katy Perry.” (That girl is wise beyond her years.) Or maybe it was Taylor Swift. It was someone hateable/I-wish-that-were-me-able.

What? You don’t want to be Taylor Swift? Really?! A rich, famous twenty-four year old girl who dates tons of cute boys and whose job it is write platinum selling songs about how they broke her fragile little-girl heart and tour the world singing them. Yeah, I don’t want to be her either.

I’d much rather be me. Sitting in my fishbowl day in and day out. I don’t get to tour the world singing about the latest boy who broke my heart, but sometimes when my work boyfriend passes by my office doors he looks in and smiles at me.

Photo credits: Boyfriend someecard “borrowed” from here and Taylor Swift Boyfriend collage “borrowed” from here.